NEA Creative Placemaking Technical Assistance, FY2020 | NEAPS1902

Opportunity Information: Apply for NEAPS1902

The NEA Creative Placemaking Technical Assistance, FY2020 opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number NEAPS1902; CFDA 45.024) is a discretionary National Endowment for the Arts program offering support through a cooperative agreement to build a stronger, more practical technical assistance system for creative placemaking efforts nationwide. Creative placemaking, as framed by the NEA, is about integrating arts and culture into community development work in ways that produce tangible local outcomes, including economic, physical, and social improvements. The core idea is that arts organizations and artists should be active partners alongside other community sectors rather than operating separately, with the arts helping to shape strategies and solutions in areas like economic development, education and youth, health, housing, transportation, workforce development, public safety, agriculture and food systems, and environment and energy.

This opportunity grows out of the NEA's Our Town program, which has been the main federal vehicle for funding creative placemaking for roughly a decade. Through that experience, the NEA found that many Our Town grantees did not just need grant dollars; they also needed hands-on, practical help while implementing projects on the ground. In response, the NEA launched an Our Town Technical Assistance Pilot Program in 2016 that provided targeted assistance to a smaller set of grantees. The FY2020 opportunity reflects a decision to expand beyond that pilot and create a more robust, larger-scale technical assistance program that can reach more communities.

The planned Creative Placemaking Technical Assistance Program is meant to serve multiple audiences at once: communities that are thinking about applying to Our Town in the future, communities that already have Our Town awards and need support during implementation, and other communities pursuing creative placemaking even if they are not currently tied to an Our Town grant. A central delivery method described in the solicitation is the convening of short-term technical assistance institutes. These institutes are intended to bring together expert practitioners with teams of local leaders, creating a structured environment where communities can get direct guidance, problem-solve implementation challenges, strengthen cross-sector partnerships, and improve the likelihood that arts-integrated community development projects lead to measurable results.

From an administrative and eligibility standpoint, the award will be made as a cooperative agreement, which generally signals that the NEA expects to have substantial involvement during the period of performance compared with a standard grant. The cooperative agreement is scheduled to start no earlier than January 1, 2020 and may run for up to 24 months. The solicitation also limits submissions to one proposal per organization, meaning an applicant must consolidate its approach into a single, comprehensive proposal rather than submitting multiple competing concepts.

Eligible applicants are broad and include various levels of government (state, county, city/township, and special districts), independent school districts, federally recognized Native American tribal governments, public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, and nonprofit organizations with IRS 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions in that nonprofit category). The stated award ceiling is $500,000. The original closing date for applications was July 29, 2019, and the opportunity was created on May 29, 2019. Overall, the opportunity is best understood as an effort to professionalize and scale the "how-to" support behind creative placemaking, not just fund individual projects, by building a structured technical assistance system that helps communities plan, coordinate, and execute arts-driven community development work more effectively.

• The National Endowment for the Arts in the arts sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "NEA Creative Placemaking Technical Assistance, FY2020" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 45.024.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2019-05-29.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2019-07-29. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $500,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for NEAPS1902

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: